Free Music Friday

It's a bumper edition this week with plenty of festive goodies to wrap your ears around...

Forget shopping days, there are only two more Free Music Fridays before Santa gets buckled up and delivers his final verdict on who’s been naughty and who’s been nice this year.

Definitely falling into the latter category are the utterly wonderful, always dependable folk over at [link]3voor12.vpro.nl/luisterpaal/albums.html[/link] who gift us new album streams from Hundred Waters, Envy The West, Vinyl Williams, Goat, Peaking Lights, Billow Observatory, Philip Glass, San Cisco, Snow Palms, LA Vampires with Maria Minerva, Kiki Gyan and Guided By Voices.

The good people at [link]music.aol.com/new-releases-full-cds/#/1[/link] chip in with Terrible Things, Whirl, Wang Chung (yup, they’re back!) and The HobbitOST and [link]music.aol.com/new-releases-full-cds/#/1[/link] is home to newbies from superstar DJ Steve Aoki, Jack Davey, Bot’Ox, Hortlax Cobra and PK.

The jazzy [link]radio6.nl/luisterpaal[/link] crew lets you try Jools Holland & His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, Miles Davis and Bryan Ferry before you buy while [link]www.xlr8r.com/mp3[/link] has free dancey downloads from Jubilee, Geiom, James Zabiela, Aleph and Nocow.

As year end approaches, [link]www.npr.org/blogs/bestmusic2012/2012/12/07/166745766/10-artists-you-should-have-known-in-2012[/link] has 10 free downloads from acts that may have flown under your radar this year including Lord Huron, Polica, John Fullbright and Hot Press favourites THEEsatisfaction.

Our favourite Free Music Friday thing this week is the Danger four-tracker that finds Katy B hanging out in the studio with Zinc, Wiley, Diplo and Jessie Ware, to name but four of her musical pals.

Our Tiny Desk Concerts friends also welcomed Lyle Lovett and his fiddler friend into their workspace this week. The free download part is acting up, but you can have a goo at [link]www.npr.org/programs/all-songs-considered[/link].

Also begging to be iTuned is this gorgeous version of ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ by Grainne Hunt, a Dublin singer who shared a staircase during the summer with Mark Geary.

The festive goodies don’t end there with Sufjan Stevens, Great Lake Swimmers, The Eastern Sea, Deep Sea Diver, Current Swell – that’s a lot of watery references! – and Kelly Sweet among those contributing to the Paste magazine holiday sampler. It’s free but tips are appreciated.

Also from the Noise Trade stable come these super-tasty ATO, Anti, French Kiss and Nettwerk label samplers. Again, please throw a few yo-yos their way.

[link]atomsforpeace.info[/link] has a free tune from the new Thom Yorke side-project but you have to go looking for it; the new look [link]themightystef.net[/link] is offering three free tunes in return for your email address; and if you missed alt-J being totally wondrous on Abbey Road Studios: In Session With…, fear not, because the whole thing is archived at [link]www.channel4.com/programmes/abbey-road-studios-in-session-with-vw-beetle/4od[/link].

Rest bring 2012 to a suitably riotous close with their ace – and 100% free! – ‘Descent With Modification’ single.

Atlanta rapper Young Jeezy enlists the services of Lodi, Jahlil Beats, Kenoe, D Rich, DJ Mustard, Black Metaphor, Warren G and a whole lot more on his new It’s Tha World mixtape.

There’s more mixtape-ry to be had courtesy of Sufjan Stevens whose festive Chopped & Scroogedincludes Das Racist, Mr. Kinetik, The Pro Letarians and Deerhoof’s John Dietrich among its contributors.

Dublin’s very fine Psychonavigation label are giving away a 13-track preview sampler, which includes offerings from the likes of Mr. Bird, Replicants, Paranoia Department, Roger Doyle and the brilliantly named Mick Chillage.

Those festive 4AD-types treat us to a five-track sampler, which includes Hot Press Annual interviewee Grimes’ ‘Genesis’.

Responsible for one of the gigs of the year at Forbidden Fruit, Chairlift have come up with a four-track EP of demos from their sophomore Somethingalbum.

Santigold has conjured up a raptastic new tune for the HBO series Girls called, would you believe it, ‘Girls’.

The crazed cult disguised as a pop group – or should that be the other way around? – The Polyphonic Spree have come up a gorgeous animated vid to accompany their take on John Lennon’s ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’.

Josh Ritter serves up ‘Joy To You Baby’, the first track to be lifted from his The Beast In Its Tracksalbum, which hits in March 2013. Damn fine it is too!

Springfield went hipster last weekend with The Decemberists and Daft Punk both gracing the new US episode of The Simpsons. Here’s what you’ve got to look forward to…

Free Music Friday’s fave clip this week though is the slashertastic one accompanying Emmy The Great and Tim Wheeler’s ‘Zombie Christmas’.

And that’s where we have to sling our festive hooks for this week. To be included in the sniff, final, sob, Free Music Friday of 2012 send your links to @stuartclark66

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday

Sadly there'll be no outdoor rock and/or rolling in The Kingdom this weekend, but we've got another immense Free Music Friday collection of downloads, streams, vids and trailers to help you shrug off the festival cancellation blues.

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday

With Ireland about to plunge into another Ice Age - a little melodramatic we know, but where's the bleedin' sun gone? - Free Music Friday has assembled a cockle-warming collection of downloads, streams, vids and trailers for your aural delectation. As for the weather, sort yourself out, son, or you'll get a slap!

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday is heading to Lisbon for the weekend - there may be a sneaky visit to Stadio Alvalade XXI to watch Sporting take on Academica – but before jumping into the HP Lear Jet, we've another quality collection of tunes and vids to brighten up your own impending downtime.

Free Music Friday

The new Ice Age may be upon us, but that hasn't stopped Free Music Friday assembling another all killer, no filler collection of tunes, trailers and vids, which is guaranteed to warm those winter cockles. We can't guarantee it'll stop your flight to Dublin being diverted to Reykjavik, but hey!

Free Music Friday

Now that we've got all that festive malarkey out the way, it's back to normal Free Music Friday business with a major emphasis this week on the new acts who may or not make it on to the Hot Press Hot For 2015 list, which will be unveiled in our January 22 print issue.

Free Music Friday

It's with a tear in our eye – and a bottle of Franciscan Well Jameson-aged Stout in our bellies – that we bring you the final Free Music Friday of what has been a fab 2014. So, strap yourself in, here we go...

Free Music Friday

Seeing as it's the penultimate one of 2014, we thought we'd better treat you to a real humdinger of a Free Music Friday, which it now being almost halfway through December is allowed to include some choice Christmas fare.

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday

To celebrate what has been an extremely satisfying week of international football – well, unless you’re Dutch – Free Music Friday has gathered together another continent-straddling array of the choicest tuneage money can’t buy.

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday

Despite being severely traumatised by Everton’s calamitous start to the season – expect them and Man Utd to start fighting over giving David Moyes his old job back – Free Music Friday has managed to gather together the very finest aural fare for your weekend delectation.

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday is Belfast-bound for Guinness Amplify - and some serious vinyl record shopping! - but not before we treat you to another bumper selection of tunes that won’t leave your bank account battered and bruised.

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday

Sure, we've got a rakeload of audio streams from the likes of Dum Dum Girls and a veritable feast of visual goodies (hello Rubberbandits) this week, but this FMF will be forever known as 'The One With The Stuart Clark Tune In It'…

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday

It’s a lean, mean Free Music Friday this week reflecting the fact that, with all that X Factor detritus clogging up the charts, most artists of quality and distinction have started their Christmas partying already. And who can jolly well blame them?

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday

The world is a brighter, happier, all round more decent place following the Bryan Oviedo goal that ended 21 years of Old Trafford hurt on Wednesday for Everton. To celebrate this momentous sporting occasion (and in the case of our own United-supporting Craig Fitzpatrick, to lift the spirits!) we’ve got an extra bumper Free Music Friday for you.

Free Music Friday

We told you it would all be different with Martin ‘n’ Roy in charge! To bring the curtain down on a week of mindless footballing-related optimism – the 2016 European Championship is as good as Ireland’s – we have another bumper crop of quality no money required tuneage for you.

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday

Having got up to all sorts of frolicsome festival fun at Indiependence, Free Music Friday is back to the serious business of tracking down the finest tuneage money can’t buy because they don’t cost anything.

Free Music Friday

Free Music Friday

When not slathering on the Factor 30 this week – or the Factor 3,000 in our Ms. Heslin’s case – Free Music Friday has assembled a collection of tunes so sunkissed they'll keep your cockles warmed right up till Christmas.